Helsinki - An exceptionally
bright "fireball" was spotted late on Tuesday
slicing through the sky over Finland before exploding
over the country's border with Russia, the Finnish Astronomical
Association (URSA) said on Wednesday.

The phenomenon was witnessed by dozens of people in the
eastern part of the country.

"Our mathematicians have roughly calculated that
the (fireball) began its decent over our eastern border
and ended in an explosion over the Russian Karelia region,"
URSA newsletter editor Marko Pekkola said.

Closer calculations will be needed to determine the exact
route taken by the "fireball", which was probably
an incandescent meteorite, Pekkola added.

No, not GW. We are
referring to yesterday's testimony by British MP George
Galloway, outspoken critic of the US and British led invasion
and occupation of Iraq, now accused of profiting from
the Oil for Food programme in what appears clearly to
be a smear campaign against a politican who tells tell
the truth about the situation in Iraq. Accused, tried,
and convicted in the Senate and the US press last week,
Galloway came to Washington to clear his name. Of course,
he is well aware that the neocons don't care about truth
and justice and that nothing he said would make a difference
to their findings, therefore he used the opportunity to
condemn the disaster in Iraq, the pack of lies from US
officials that justified it, as well as coming back repeatedly
to the number of Iraqis and Americans who are dead because
of those lies.

However, as Mr Galloway was not speaking directly to
the American people, the reports of his testimony come
filtered through the political agendas of those controlling
the news. We see that in the coastal cities, the papers
go into more depth on Galloway's remarks, while in the
heartland of Homeland Security, those reamrks are mostly
edited out and the focus is on his refusal to answer loaded
questions with a simple yes or no. Such is the way the
red states stay red.

Below we have the transcript of Mr Galloway's opening
statement, but first we have a selection of articles from
a number of US publications on his appearance.

The Telegraph, the British paper that lost a
libel case Galloway brought against it when they published
forged documents, and one of the main voices of Zionism
in the UK, avoided Galloway's criticisms of US war policy
in their report, preferring to focus
on Galloway's refusal to directly answer a couple
of questions. Galloway was asked by Senator Levin, a Democrat,
whether he was troubled that his friend, Jordanian businessman
Fawaz Zureikat, may have profited from the Oil for Food
programme. Refusing to be drawn into simple yes or no
answers that accept the assumptions of the hostile question
("Have you stopped beating your wife?"), Galloway
gave a long response on his opposition to the programme,
the absurdity of giving .30 a day for food, medicine,
education, etc for each Iraqi during the embargo. He also
pointed out the absurdity of claiming that the money Mr
Zureikat donated to his Mariam's Charity came from the
kickbacks when he was a very rich man who did much more
business in Iraq and elsewhere, and returned again and
again to the fact that the Senate's investigation shows
it was American companies who were responsible for more
improprieties than everyone else combined, and that these
improprieties were done with the knowledge and agreement
of the US government.

To the moralist Senators, whose indignation at ignoring
UN rulings extends only to certain hand-picked programmes
where the US has been able to impose its will (Where was
this indignation when Israel ignores condemnation after
condemnation or when the Security Council refused to legalise
the Bush Reich invasion of Iraq?), Galloway's evasiveness
was proof that he was an unreliable witness.

Galloway repeatedly pointed out that the evidence against
him was flimsy at best and that if they had had anything
concrete, it would have been published. They had nothing
concrete.

The New York Times
unleashed their neocon reporter Judith Miller, the
same reporter who was embedded in Iraq with the fraudster
and discredited Chalabi and whose reporting came up for
such scathing criticism. She was then transfered to the
UN where she has been one of the loudest conspirators
in bringing down UN Secretary General Kofi Annan over
the Oil for Food scandal. Annan has so far been vindicated
of every charge of impropriety.

We ran an article yesterday
by Wayne Madsen chronicling Coleman's ties with AIPAC
and the neoconservatives. Be clear. The campaign against
the British anti-war activist and harsh critic of Bush's
poodle Tony Blair, as well as a Frenchman and a Russian,
have all the earmarks of a vendetta against those who
opposed the US rape and pillage of a country that was
no threat to US security. As the Iraq disaster becomes
more and more obvious, the Senate is indeed throwing up
what Galloway so aptly termed "the mother of all
smokescreens".

WASHINGTON - A prominent
British politician linked to illegal payments in the Iraqi
oil-for-food program told U.S. senators yesterday that
their investigation was "the mother of all smokescreens"
to divert attention from "the real scandal":
U.S. policy in Iraq.

British legislator George Galloway is one of several
foreign politicians who the Senate subcommittee on investigations
claimed last week received options to buy discounted Iraqi
oil in return for helping Saddam Hussein's regime evade
U.N. sanctions.

But Galloway, an outspoken critic of the Iraq sanctions
and the U.S.-led invasion of the country, was the only
one to travel to Washington to defend himself.

He testified under oath and without immunity, but with
harsh language that shook up the usually staid hearing
room.

Last week, Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the subcommittee
chairman, released a report charging that Galloway received
oil allocations of 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2004,
and had a Jordanian associate, Fawaz Zureikat, sell the
oil and funnel the revenues through a charity.

The report also said that former Iraqi Vice President
Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz confirmed that Galloway was on their list of friends
to be rewarded.

Galloway said he neither traded oil nor had anyone trade
it on his behalf, and questioned the validity of any information
extracted from a prisoner facing war crimes charges.

Comment:
The article above is how the syndicated LA Times
article appeared in its much shortened version when it
was reprinted in a Kentucky newspaper. Below we print
the same article as it appeared on the LA Times
web site. Notice the cuts made for middle America. They
are in red.

George Galloway tells senators their oil-for- food probe
is a cover-up for the war. Amid the vitriol, he denies
any role in illicit deals.

By Maggie Farley and Johanna
Neuman
LA Times Staff Writers
May 18, 2005

WASHINGTON —
A prominent British politician linked to illegal payments
in the Iraq oil-for-food program told U.S. senators Tuesday
that their investigation was "the mother of all smoke
screens" to divert attention from "the real
scandal": U.S. policy in Iraq.

British legislator George Galloway is among several foreign
politicians whom the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations accused last week of receiving options
to buy discounted Iraqi oil in return for helping Saddam
Hussein's regime evade United Nations sanctions. The
holders of such options could sell them to oil traders
at a profit. Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua
and Russian lawmaker Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky were also
named. All three have denied wrongdoing.

But Galloway, an outspoken critic of the sanctions on
Iraq and the U.S.-led invasion of the country, was the
only one who traveled to Washington to defend himself.
He testified under oath and without immunity but used
harsh language that shook up the typically staid hearing
room.

Galloway described the committee chairman,
Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman, as a "pro-war,
neocon hawk and the lickspittle of George W. Bush"
who, he said, sought revenge against anyone who did not
support the invasion of Iraq.

"Now, I know that standards have
slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a
lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice,"
he said, accusing Coleman of not giving him a chance to
respond to the charges before circulating the committee's
report. "I am here today, but last week you already
found me guilty."

Last week, Coleman released a report charging that Galloway
had received oil allocations of 20 million barrels from
2000 to 2004 and had a Jordanian associate, Fawaz Zureikat,
sell the oil and funnel the revenue through a charity.

The report also says that former Iraqi Vice President
Taha Yassin Ramadan and former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq
Aziz confirmed that Galloway was on their list of friends
to be rewarded.

Galloway denied trading oil or having anyone trade it
on his behalf and questioned the validity of any information
extracted from a prisoner facing war crimes charges, "knowing
what the world knows about how you treat prisoners,"
he said.

"Now, you have nothing on me, senator,
except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which
have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet
government in Baghdad," he told Coleman.

Asked what he had accomplished at the
hearing, Galloway told a reporter he thought he had served
as a reminder that the war was wrongheaded.

"Most people think the real villains
of the piece in Iraq are not [U.N. Secretary-General]
Kofi Annan and [French President Jacques] Chirac but here
in Washington and in the White House and in the Republican
majority," he said.

After the hearing, Coleman said that
"nothing was said today that at all discounted the
veracity, the reliability of those documents that were
affirmed by senior Iraqi officials."

Both Coleman and Carl Levin of Michigan,
the ranking Democrat on the committee, said it was "simply
not credible" that Galloway — who described
himself as a "dear friend" of Aziz, one of three
Iraqi officials, according to Coleman, who selected the
contract recipients — did not know that his partner
and the man who funded his campaign against the war was
making oil deals with Hussein.

"If in fact he lied to the committee,
there will have to be consequences," Coleman said.

The Senate panel had more detailed documentation
on other implicated politicians. The report states that
Pasqua, now a French senator, was allocated 11 million
barrels of oil.

On Monday in Paris, Pasqua repeated his
denial that he had received anything in such transactions
and pointed out that his name disappeared from the list
when his advisor, Bernard Guillet, began receiving allocations
in 2000.

"If my name appears in certain Iraqi
documents, that can only be the result of fraudulent behavior
on the part of certain people who have used my name,"
he said.

French authorities arrested Guillet in
April for money laundering and influence peddling related
to the U.N.'s oil-for-food program.

The Senate committee issued a separate
report on prominent Russian politicians who allegedly
received Iraqi oil rights. President Vladimir V. Putin's
former chief of staff, Alexander S. Voloshin, and the
presidential council received oil rights worth nearly
$3 million in exchange for working to lift U.N. sanctions,
the report charges.

It also says that Zhirinovsky, a prominent
ultranationalist politician, received rights to buy 75
million barrels of oil.

Zhirinovsky reportedly boasted that his
party was responsible for helping lift Russia's sanctions
against Iraq. Investigators pointed out that Iraq rewarded
Russia with extra allocations after it blocked a U.N.
Security Council attempt to tighten sanctions in the spring
of 2001.

But Coleman did not directly say that
Russia's pro-Iraq policy was a result of the oil awards
or that any country had changed its policy because of
individuals' reported allocations. "We're just presenting
the facts," he said.

Coleman said the subcommittee would hold
hearings on U.N. reform in the fall.

Comment:
Notice that even if the original article was cut, it still
ignores most of Galloway's criticisms and gives focus
to Coleman and Levin's reactions, the insinuation that
Galloway was lying and that he wasn't credible. There
is no mention of the lies of the Bush government that
led to the current disaster, no mention of the errors
in the Senate report that Galloway raised, no mention
of AIPAC.

May 18, 2005 -- WASHINGTON
— British politician George Galloway went eyeball
to eyeball with Senate investigators yesterday, calling
allegations he took oil bribes from Saddam Hussein a "pack
of lies" and labeling the U.N. oil-for-food scandal
probe "the mother of all smokescreens."

In an appearance before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee
on Investigations that was stunning in its audacity, the
anti-war member of Parliament launched a furious counter-assault
on President Bush and Republican probers. Galloway claimed
the oil-for-food scandal was cooked up to slander anti-war
critics.

"You have nothing on me, senator, except my name
on lists, many of which have been drawn up after the installation
of your puppet government in Baghdad," Galloway said
to the panel's chairman, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

"I am not now, nor have I ever been an oil trader,
and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"I know that standards have slipped over the last
few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably
cavalier with any idea of justice."

Coleman and other senators were caught flat-footed by
the ferocity of Galloway's counter-offensive. They cut
short the questioning of him and abruptly stopped the
hearing.

Coleman said later that despite the theatrics, Galloway
gave evasive answers to some questions and was unable
to refute the documentary evidence collected by his investigators.
He said he would send the committee's report to British
authorities.

Galloway demanded to appear before the Coleman committee
after it released a report last week detailing evidence
it obtained from Iraqi government documents and interviews
with Saddam's top aides, including former Iraqi Vice President
Taha Yashin Ramadan, now in U.S. custody.

The committee said the new evidence indicates that Galloway
received allocations for 20 million barrels of discount
Iraqi oil.

The shady deals were allegedly arranged through a mysterious
Jordanian businessman and in one case laundered through
a charity Galloway created for a 4-year old Iraqi girl
with leukemia.

But Galloway counterpunched — calling facts in
the report "schoolboy howlers" and challenging
the evidence and the credibility of former regime witnesses,
especially Ramadan.

"I know he is your prisoner. I believe he is in
the Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes
charges punishable by death," Galloway said.

"In these circumstances, knowing what the world
knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison,
in Bagram Air Base, in Guantanamo Bay . . . I'm not sure
how much credibility anyone would put on anything you
manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances,"
Galloway added.

Galloway, who was elected to a heavily Muslim district
earlier this month despite being kicked out of the Labor
Party, also denied he was a Saddam apologist and said
he only met the Butcher of Baghdad twice.

"As a matter of fact, I met Saddam Hussein exactly
the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met with him,"
Galloway said, referring to meetings the defense secretary
had during the Reagan administration.

Comment:The Post, a New York tabloid that thrives on
sensationalism, includes some of Galloway's more combative
remarks,
but
only those that related to the personal attacks against
him. Other than a remark about Abu Ghraib, The Post
ignored the MP's criticisms of US war policy. Not surprising
for a paper with Zionist politics.

WASHINGTON - A British
MP implicated in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal
denied he received vouchers from Saddam Hussein to buy
millions of barrels of Iraqi oil.

"I am not now nor have I ever been an oil trader
and neither has anyone on my behalf," said George
Galloway, who testified at U.S. senate subcommittee hearing
on Tuesday.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British
and American governments and businessmen were selling
him guns and gas."

The subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Government Affairs alleged last week that Galloway
paid kickbacks to Saddam in exchange for the lucrative
allocations. A similar claim has been made against a French
senator and several top-ranking Russian politicians.

Galloway rejected the charges that he profited from the
program and demanded an apology for what he called a "bizarre,
grotesque" senate investigation process.

He complained that it's "a process whereby somebody
investigates you without telling you they're investigating
you, without ever contacting you, without ever asking
you a single question, without a letter or a phone call
– any contact at all."

The oil-for-food program was designed to let Iraq sell
some of its oil under UN supervision so that revenues
could be used to buy food and medical aid for Iraqi citizens.

Comment:
The CBC ran this antiseptic piece on their web site. Once
again, the criticisms of US policy in Iraq are absent.

WASHINGTON -- British
lawmaker George Galloway denounced U.S. senators on Tuesday,
denying accusations that he profited from the U.N. oil-for-food
program and accusing them of unfairly tarnishing his name.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., questioned Galloway's honesty
and told reporters, "If in fact he lied to this committee,
there will have to be consequences."

Galloway's appearance was an odd spectacle on Capitol
Hill: A legislator from a friendly nation, voluntarily
testifying under oath, without immunity, at a combative
congressional hearing where neither side displayed diplomacy.

"Now, I know that standards have slipped over the
last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer, you're
remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," Galloway
told Coleman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs investigation subcommittee.

The panel is investigating allegations that former Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein manipulated the $64 billion oil-for-food
program to get kickbacks and build international opposition
to U.N. sanctions against Iraq set up after Hussein's
1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Galloway is a member of the anti-Iraq war Respect party.
He has been an outspoken opponent of both Iraq wars and
of U.N. sanctions. Coleman's subcommittee claimed that
Galloway received allocations worth 20 million barrels
from 2000 to 2003 and funneled proceeds through a fund
he established in 1998 to help a 4-year-old Iraqi girl
suffering from leukemia.

Comment:
Here in the Associated Press feed picked up by many US
papers, we see that focus is given to Norm Coleman's response
to Galloway, not to Galloway's remarks and criticisms
of US policy, setting up the rest of the article in the
light of the slur "if he was lying..." No mention
is made of the errors in the Senate report that Galloway
raised in his testimony.

Well, gosh, if lying is all of a sudden out of favour
in the Senate, then what about impeaching the president
and his entire government?

The next piece comes from the blog of a writer for the
liberal publication The Nation.

Not an ideological idiot, not a partisan idiot, but a
plain old-fashioned, drool-on-his-tie idiot.

The Minnesota Republican senator who took Paul Wellstone's
seat after one of the most disreputable campaigns in American
political history, has been trying over the past year
to make a name for himself by blowing the controversy
surrounding the United Nations Oil-for-Food program into
something more than the chronicle of corporate abuse that
it is. The U.S. media, which thrives on official soundbites,
was more than willing to lend credence to Coleman's overblown
claims about wrongdoing in the UN program set up in 1996
to permit Iraq -- which was then under strict international
sanctions -- to buy food, medicine and humanitarian supplies
with the revenues from regulated oil sales. Even as Coleman's
claims became more and more fantastic, he faced few challenges
from the cowering Democrats in Congress.

But when Coleman started slandering foreign politicians
he exposed the dramatic vulnerability of his claims that
the supposed scandal was something more than a blatant
example of U.S. corporations taking advantage of their
powerful connections in Washington to undermine official
U.S. policy, harm the national interest and profit off
the suffering of the poor.

The Senate investigation that Coleman sought regarding
the Oil-for-Food program has already revealed that the
Bush administration failed to crack down on widespread
abuse of the oil-for-food program by U.S. energy companies,
and that U.S. oil purchases accounted for the majority
of the kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein's regime in return
for sales of impensive oil. Indeed, the report concludes,
"The United States (government) was not only aware
of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided
the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained
from circumventing UN sanctions. On occasion, the United
States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales."

Instead of forcing the president, his aides and the executives
of Bayoil, the Texas oil company that the report shows
paid "at least $37 million in illegal surcharges
to the Hussein regime" -- money that helped the Iraqi
dictator solidify his grip on power -- Coleman started
to make wild charges about European officials such as
British parliamentarian George Galloway.

Galloway called Coleman's bluff and flew to Washington
for a remarkable appearance before the Senate Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations. "I am determined
now that I am here, to be not the accused but the accuser,"
Coleman announced as he stood outside the Capitol Tuesday.
"These people are involved in the mother of all smoke
screens."

The member of parliament tore through Coleman's flimsy
"evidence," issuing an unequivocal denial that
began, "Mr Chairman, I am not now, nor have I ever
been an oil trader and neither has anyone been on my behalf.
I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one,
sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf."
He accused Coleman of being "remarkably cavalier
with any idea of justice" and pointed out error after
error in the report the senator had brandished against
him.

For instance, Galloway noted that he had met Saddam twice
-- not the "many" times alleged by the report.
"As a matter of fact I have met Saddam Hussein exactly
the same number of times that (Secretary of Defense) Donald
Rumsfeld met him," said the recently reelected British
parliamentarian. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld
met him to sell him guns."

For good measure, Galloway used the forum Coleman had
foolishly provided to deliver a blistering condemnation
of Coleman's war. "Now, Senator, I gave my heart
and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave
my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing
of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million
Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before
they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for
no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with
the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and
soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did
commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your
case for the war was a pack of lies," Galloway informed
the fool on Capitol Hill.

"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims
did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world,
contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to
al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that
Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I
told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi
people would resist a British and American invasion of
their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be
the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned
out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000
people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers
sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them
wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

"If the world had listened to (UN Secretary General)
Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world
had listened to (French) President Chirac, who you want
to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world
had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain,
we would not be in the disaster that we are in today.
Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are
trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported,
from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth,"
argued Galloway.

Then the Brit turned the tables on Coleman and steered
the committee's attention toward "the real Oil-for-Food
scandal."

"Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge
of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's
wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Haliburton
and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's
money, but the money of the American taxpayer," Galloway
said.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter,
that you were shipping out of the country and selling,
the proceeds of which went who knows where. Have a look
at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders
to hand out around the country without even counting it
or weighing it. Have a look at the real scandal breaking
in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony
in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters
were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians.
The real sanctions busters were your own companies with
the connivance of your own Government."

(John Nichols's new book, Against
the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition
to Empire (Nation Books) was published January
30. Howard Zinn says, "At exactly the when we need
it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection
of writings, speeches, poems and songs from thoughout
American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to
war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this
country." Frances Moore Lappe calls Against the Beast,
"Brilliant! A perfect book for an empire in denial."
Against the Beast can be found at independent bookstores
nationwide and can be obtained online by tapping the above
reference or at www.amazon.com)

Comment:
We leave the final word to the MP himself. Here is a transcript
of his opening statement.

George Galloway,
Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, delivered this statement
to US Senators today who have accused him of corruption

"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an
oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have
never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold
one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last
few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably
cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but
last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my
name around the world without ever having asked me a single
question, without ever having contacted me, without ever
written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to
contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to
me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where
there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I
want to put this in the context where I believe it ought
to be. On the very first page of your document about me
you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam
Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once
in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the
English language can that be described as "many meetings"
with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein
exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met
him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell
him guns and to give him maps the better to target those
guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions,
suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions,
I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix
and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the
country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam
Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made
of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British
and Americans governments and businessmen were selling
him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi
embassy when British and American officials were going
in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record,
Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous
evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition
to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member
of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source,
you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having
asked me whether the allegation from the source is true,
that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial
profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small
company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to
receive the income from my journalistic earnings from
my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not
own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you
have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated
and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my
name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been
drawn up after the installation of your puppet government
in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that
you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would
have been up there in your slideshow for the members of
your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the
Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank
robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many
people to their credit in your country now realize played
a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster
in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's
somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal
with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee
included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John
Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress
Presidential office and many others who had one defining
characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy
of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted
and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have
something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan.
Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that
he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison.
I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable
by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world
knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison,
in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may
say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would
put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those
circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein
Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said,
then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged
in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence
that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before
the public and before this committee today because I agreed
with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel
on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What
counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's
the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands
of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And
if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would
have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these
documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath
here today: I have never heard of this company, I have
never met anyone from this company. This company has never
paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I
can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a
single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin
dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay
if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have
never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior
former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't
you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the
Committee and the public have a right to know who this
senior former regime official you were quoting against
me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you
have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such
a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that
you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice,
that the documents that you are referring to cover a different
period in time from the documents covered by The Daily
Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by
me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited
documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with
documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's
documents date identically to the documents that you were
dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's
documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never
set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life.
There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food
matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did
not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this
document to claiming that your documents are from a different
era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite
is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents
deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph
action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian
Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages
a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones
that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on
documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents
were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves
as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which
you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop
at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents,
they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity.
They were all absolutely convinced that these documents
showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime.
And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published
their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor
published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and
the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third
set of documents which also upon forensic examination
turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful
about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me
in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven
fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed
and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers
in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath
of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose
the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's
blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the
sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most
of them children, most of them died before they even knew
that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason
other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to
born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you
committing the disaster that you did commit in invading
Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war
was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims
did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world,
contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to
al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that
Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I
told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi
people would resist a British and American invasion of
their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be
the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned
out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000
people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers
sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them
wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal
you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac
who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor,
if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement
in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are
in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens.
You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that
you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of
Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have
a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad,
the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth
went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton
and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's
money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter,
that you were shipping out of the country and selling,
the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look
at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders
to hand out around the country without even counting it
or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the
newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in
this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were
not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The
real sanctions busters were your own companies with the
connivance of your own Government."

Comment:
It has likely been years since true words such as these
were spoken in the American Congress. Certainly, as the
old saying goes, truer words have never been spoken in
those hallowed halls. The phony Republican/Democrat debate
and illusion of democracy it so reassuringly gives to
the populace has nothing to do with the real government
of the people, by the people and for the people so hailed
in the US mythology. Our world is the world of the lie,
and people who speak the truth are slandered, smeared,
and lynched.

Coleman and Levin know that Galloway's testimony isn't
going to make a bit of difference to Bush's plans. As
we saw, the US mainstream press is ignoring that part
of his words that speak directly to US crimes. They ignore
his point that the major Oil for Food scandal is the billions
of dollars that have gone missing or that have been paid
to US corporations. However, in a non-linear universe,
the speaking of the truth so eloquently and forcefully
in the den of corruption, that cesspool known as Capital
Hill, may have effects none of us can imagine. What counts
is that someone had the courage to go and confront the
hangmen, stare them straight in the eye, and speak his
peace.

Can you imagine what would happen to the other George
in front of a hostile crowd? The one time it happened,
during GW's visit to Ireland last summer when he was asked
some pointed questions by an Irish journalist, he was
furious. And that wasn't even a crowd!

Galloway has had his fifteen minutes of fame in the US
media. The lethargic public may have raised its collective
head momentarily when it heard something out of the usual
occurred to Norm Coleman, only to fall back into its deep
slumber when they realised it was a British politician
and not a rock star or movie queen. Today it is back to
business as usual. Another scandal or diversion will appear,
our attention will be focused elsewhere, and the words
of Norm Coleman, the man put into office by the murder
of Paul Wellstone, calling Galloway's integrity into question
will be repeated until they are believed in the same way
that other sound bites hypotised Americans into believing
it was a gang of Iraqi "terrorists" who hijacked
the planes on 9/11. The smears will continue while Galloway's
accusations of American crimes, condoned by his accusers,
will be forgotten.

Is there any point,
now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting
the history of the Iraq war? Yes: any path out of the
quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents
weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough
guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to
understand how the tough guys made America weak.

There has been notably little U.S. coverage of the "Downing
Street memo" - actually the minutes of a British
prime minister's meeting on July 23, 2002, during which
officials reported on talks with the Bush administration
about Iraq. But the memo, which was leaked to The
Times of London during the British election campaign,
confirms what apologists for the war have always denied:
the Bush administration cooked up a case for a war it
wanted.

Here's a sample: "Military action was now seen as
inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military
action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and
W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed
around the policy."

Why did the administration want to invade Iraq, when,
as the memo noted, "the case was thin" and Saddam's
"W.M.D. capability was less than that of Libya, North
Korea, or Iran"? Iraq was perceived as a soft target;
a quick victory there, its domestic political advantages
aside, could serve as a demonstration of American military
might, one that would shock and awe the world.

But the Iraq war has, instead, demonstrated the limits
of American power, and emboldened our potential enemies.
Why should Kim Jong Il fear us, when we can't even secure
the road from Baghdad to the airport?

At this point, the echoes of Vietnam are unmistakable.
Reports from the recent offensive near the Syrian border
sound just like those from a 1960's search-and-destroy
mission, body count and all. Stories filed by reporters
actually with the troops suggest that the insurgents,
forewarned, mostly melted away, accepting battle only
where and when they chose.

Meanwhile, America's strategic position is steadily deteriorating.

Next year, reports Jane's Defense
Industry, the United States will spend as much on
defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet
the Pentagon now admits that our military is having severe
trouble attracting recruits, and would have difficulty
dealing with potential foes - those that, unlike Saddam's
Iraq, might pose a real threat.

In other words, the people who got us into Iraq have
done exactly what they falsely accused Bill Clinton of
doing: they have stripped America of its capacity to respond
to real threats.

So what's the plan?

The people who sold us this war continue to insist that
success is just around the corner, and that things would
be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news.
But the administration has declared victory in Iraq at
least four times. January's election, it seems, was yet
another turning point that wasn't.

Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most
of those who vehemently opposed the war say that we have
to stay on in Iraq now that we're there.

In effect, America has been taken
hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible
scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though
terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there).
Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American
soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody
wants to be accused, by an administration always ready
to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops
in the back.

But the American military isn't just bogged down in Iraq;
it's deteriorating under the strain. We may already be
in real danger: what threats, exactly, can we make against
the North Koreans? That John Bolton will yell at them?
And every year that the war goes on, our military gets
weaker.

So we need to get beyond the clichés - please,
no more "pottery barn principles" or "staying
the course." I'm not advocating an immediate pullout,
but we have to tell the Iraqi government that our stay
is time-limited, and that it has to find a way to take
care of itself. The point is that something has to give.
We either need a much bigger army - which means a draft
- or we need to find a way out of Iraq.

Comment:
The argument that the US should continue in Iraq even
if the invasion was a mistake (as opposed to
being a major war crime) because those bloodthirsty
Iraqis would be at each others' throats without the presence
of the US troops, is as full of sewage as Iraq's rivers
under the occupation. It is the US and its Israeli godfather
that have been setting Sunni against Shi'ite and the Kurds
against them both. Contrary to US imperialist propaganda,
the Iraqis themselves have a strong sense of national
pride that overrides the regional or religious differences
the occupiers are attempting to stoke in the age-old colonialist
strategy of divide and conquer.

The argument that the US must stay regardless of the
reasons that sent them in reeks of imperialist arrogance,
a rationalisation to justify acts and a presence that
in no way can be justified. The US presence is restricted
to small areas of the country. The colonial administrators
hide in Baghdad's green zone. American journalists never
leave their hotel, leaving it to Iraqis to go out and
brave the possibility of kidnapping or death while collecting
information on the ground that will later be massaged
and made nice for the evening news back Stateside.

The entry entry from Riverbend's Baghdad Burning blog
provides evidence of US responsibility for some of the
bombings in Iraq.

She stood in the crowded room as her drove of
minions stood around her...?A huddling mass trying to draw
closer to her aura of evil. The lights flashed against her
fangs as her cruel lips curled into a grimace. It was meant
to be a smile but it wouldn't reach her cold, lifeless eyes?
It was a leer- the leer of the undead before a feeding...

The above was not a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer-
it was just Condi Rice in Iraq a day ago. At home, we fondly
refer to her as The Vampire. She's such a contrast to Bush-
he simply looks stupid. She, on the other hand, looks utterly
evil.

The last two weeks have been violent. The number of explosions
in Baghdad alone is frightening. There have also been several
assassinations- bodies being found here and there. It's
somewhat disturbing to know that corpses are turning up
in the most unexpected places. Many people will tell you
it's not wise to eat river fish anymore because they have
been nourished on the human remains being dumped into the
river. That thought alone has given me more than one sleepless
night. It is almost as if Baghdad has turned into a giant
graveyard.

The latest corpses were those of some Sunni and Shia clerics-
several of them well-known. People are being patient and
there is a general consensus that these killings are being
done to provoke civil war. Also worrisome is the fact that
we are hearing of people being rounded up by security forces
(Iraqi) and then being found dead days later- apparently
when the new Iraqi government recently decided to reinstate
the death penalty, they had something else in mind.

But back to the explosions. One of the larger blasts was
in an area called Ma'moun, which is a middle class area
located in west Baghdad. It?s a relatively calm residential
area with shops that provide the basics and a bit more.
It happened in the morning, as the shops were opening up
for their daily business and it occurred right in front
of a butchers shop. Immediately after, we heard that a man
living in a house in front of the blast site was hauled
off by the Americans because it was said that after the
bomb went off, he sniped an Iraqi National Guardsman.

I didn?t think much about the story- nothing about it stood
out: an explosion and a sniper- hardly an anomaly. The interesting
news started circulating a couple of days later. People
from the area claim that the man was taken away not because
he shot anyone, but because he knew too much about the bomb.
Rumor has it that he saw an American patrol passing through
the area and pausing at the bomb site minutes before the
explosion. Soon after they drove away, the bomb went off
and chaos ensued. He ran out of his house screaming to the
neighbors and bystanders that the Americans had either planted
the bomb or seen the bomb and done nothing about it. He
was promptly taken away.

The bombs are mysterious. Some of them explode in the midst
of National Guard and near American troops or Iraqi Police
and others explode near mosques, churches, and shops or
in the middle of sougs. One thing that surprises us about
the news reports of these bombs is that they are inevitably
linked to suicide bombers. The reality is that some of these
bombs are not suicide bombs- they are car bombs that are
either being remotely detonated or maybe time bombs. All
we know is that the techniques differ and apparently so
do the intentions. Some will tell you they are resistance.
Some say Chalabi and his thugs are responsible for a number
of them. Others blame Iran and the SCIRI militia Badir.

In any case, they are terrifying. If you're close enough,
the first sound is a that of an earsplitting blast and the
sounds that follow are of a rain of glass, shrapnel and
other sharp things. Then the wails begin- the shrill mechanical
wails of an occasional ambulance combined with the wail
of car alarms from neighboring vehicles? and finally the
wail of people trying to sort out their dead and dying from
the debris.

We've been watching the protests about the
Newsweek article with interest. I?m not surprised at
the turnout at these protests- the thousands of Muslims
angry at the desecration of the Quran. What did surprise
me was the collective shock that seems to have struck the
Islamic world like a slap in the face. How is this shocking?
It's terrible and disturbing in the extreme- but how is
it shocking? After what happened in Abu Ghraib and other
Iraqi prisons how is this astonishing? American jailers
in Afghanistan and Iraq have shown little respect for human
life and dignity- why should they be expected to respect
a holy book?

Now Newsweek have retracted the story- obviously under pressure
from the White House. Is it true? Probably? We've seen enough
blatant disregard and disrespect for Islam in Iraq the last
two years to make this story sound very plausible. On a
daily basis, mosques are raided, clerics are dragged away
with bags over their heads? Several months ago the world
witnessed the execution of an unarmed Iraqi prisoner inside
a mosque. Is this latest so very surprising?

Detainees coming back after weeks or months in prison talk
of being forced to eat pork, not being allowed to pray,
being exposed to dogs, having Islam insulted and generally
being treated like animals trapped in a small cage. At the
end of the day, it's not about words or holy books or pork
or dogs or any of that. It's about what these things symbolize
on a personal level. It is infuriating to see objects that
we hold sacred degraded and debased by foreigners who felt
the need to travel thousands of kilometers to do this. That's
not to say that all troops disrespect Islam- some of them
seem to genuinely want to understand our beliefs. It does
seem like the people in charge have decided to make degradation
and humiliation a policy.

By doing such things, this war is taken to another level-
it is no longer a war against terror or terrorists- it is,
quite simply, a war against Islam and even secular Muslims
are being forced to take sides.

Comment:
The US planting the bombs itself in order to foment civil
war? How outrageous! How preposterous! How true! The dismembering
of Iraq has been Israel's goal from the beginning.

As the death toll
of troops mounts in Iraq and Afghanistan, America's military
recruiting figures have plummeted to an all-time low.
Thousands of US servicemen and women are now refusing
to serve their country. Andrew Buncombe reports

Sergeant Kevin Benderman cannot shake the images from
his head. There are bombed villages and desperate people.
There are dogs eating corpses thrown into a mass grave.
And most unremitting of all, there is the image of a young
Iraqi girl, no more than eight or nine, one arm severely
burnt and blistered, and the sound of her screams.

Last January, these memories became too much for this
veteran of the war in Iraq. Informed his unit was about
to return, he told his commanders he wanted out and applied
to be considered a conscientious objector. The Army refused
and charged him with desertion. Last week, his case -
which carries a penalty of up to seven years' imprisonment
- started before a military judge at Fort Stewart in Georgia.

"If I am sincere in what I say and
there's consequences because of my actions, I am prepared
to stand up and take it," Sgt Benderman said. "If
I have to go to prison because I don't want to kill anybody,
so be it."

The case of Sgt Benderman and those of others like him
has focused attention on the thousands of US troops who
have gone Awol (Absent Without Leave) since the start
of President George Bush's so-called war on terror.
The most recent Pentagon figures suggest there are 5,133
troops missing from duty. Of these 2,376 are sought by
the Army, 1,410 by the Navy, 1,297 by the Marines and
50 by the Air Force. Some have been missing for decades.

But campaigners say the true figure
could be far higher. Staff who run a volunteer hotline
to help desperate soldiers and recruits who want to get
out, say the number of calls has increased by 50 per cent
since 9/11. Last year alone, the GI Rights Hotline took
more than 30,000 calls. At present, the hotline gets 3,000
calls a month and the volunteers say that by the time
a soldier or recruit dials the help-line they have almost
always made up their mind to get out by one means or another.

"People are calling us because there is a real problem,"
said Robert Dove, a Quaker who works in the Boston office
of the American Friends Service Committee, one of several
volunteer groups that have operated the hotline since
1995. "We do not profess to be lawyers or therapists
but we do provide both types of support."

The people calling the hotline range from veterans such
as Sgt Benderman to recruits such as Jeremiah Adler, an
idealistic 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon, who joined
the Army believing he could help change its culture. Within
days of arriving for his basic training at Fort Benning,
Georgia, he realised he had made a mistake and said the
Army simply wanted to turn him into a "ruthless,
cold-blooded killer".

Mr Adler begged to be sent home and even pretended to
be gay to be discharged. Eventually, he and another recruit
fled in the night and rang the hotline, which advised
him to turn himself in to avoid court-martial. He will
now be given an "other than honourable discharge".

From southern Germany where he is on holiday before starting
college in the autumn, Mr Adler told The Independent:
"It was obviously a horrible experience but now I'm
glad I went through it. I was expecting to meet a whole
lot of different types of people; some had noble reasons.
I also met a lot of people who [wanted] to kill Arabs."
In one letter home to his family, Mr Adler wrote that
when he arrived he was horrified by the things he heard
other recruits talking about, things that in civilian
life would result in someone being treated as an outcast.
In another letter he said he could hear other recruits
crying at night. "You can hear people trying to make
sure no one hears them cry under their covers," he
wrote.

Mr Adler now provides advice to other recruits who have
decided the military is not for them. "When people
contact me I tell them go Awol; it's the quickest way
to get out," he said. "I was told I would be
facing 20 years hard labour at Fort Leavenworth [military
prison] because that is what the sergeant will tell you.
I learnt that was not the case."

Jeremy Hinzman, 26, a reservist with the 82nd Airborne
Division who served in Afghan-istan, decided to go Awol
after his unit was ordered to Iraq. He took his wife and
child and fled to Canada, hoping to be welcomed, as were
the 50,000 or so young Americans who sought refuge north
of the border to avoid the Vietnam war.

But in March he was refused refugee status by the Canadian
Immigration and Refugee Board. Mr Hinzman, who is appealing
the decision, told the hearing: "We were told that
we would be going to Iraq to jack up some terrorists.
We were told it was a new kind of war, that these were
evil people and they had to be dealt with ... We were
told to consider all Arabs as potential terrorists ...
to foster an attitude of hatred that gets your blood boiling."

Campaigners say recruits who decide they want to leave
the military are the most vulnerable to pressure from
sergeants and officers who try to force them to stay.
Some are told they will go to jail, others are told they
will never be able to get a job if they receive a "less
than honourable discharge", they say. They also face
intense peer pressure and abuse, as they try to get out
and after they manage to do so.

Campaigners have also drawn attention
to the often scurrilous tactics used by US military recruiters,
who for three months have failed to meet their targets
for recruits. After several cases where recruiters had
illegally covered up recruits' criminal and medical records,
threatened one prospect with jail for failing to meet
an appointment and provided another with laxatives to
help him lose weight and pass a physical, the Pentagon
is halting all recruiting on 20 May for a day of retraining.

Senior commanders have said the present recruiting environment
- with the war in Iraq having cost the lives of more than
1,600 servicemen and women and the economy able to offer
other jobs - is their most difficult. Despite this, the
Pentagon insists it is committed to finding recruits in
a fair and transparent process. Colonel Joseph Curtin,
an Army spokesman, said the retraining day would give
recruiters time to "focus on how they can do a very
tough mission without violating good order and discipline".

JE McNeil, who heads the Centre for Conscience and War
in Washington DC, a Christian group whose members also
staff the GI Rights Hotline, said many
troops she spoke with had been lied to by recruiters.
"I had an 18-year-old who was told he did not have
to serve in Iraq. 'I was told I'd get a job where I would
not be sent', he told me," said Ms McNeill, a lawyer.
"He was recruited to be an military policeman. They
are the people they are sending to Iraq. People all the
time are told [by recruiters] 'I can get you a job where
you will not have to go to war'."

Campaigners say that despite pressure on unhappy recruits
exerted in the barracks and the insults they will likely
face, if a recruit follows the correct legal procedure
they can usually get out of the military. One of the biggest
hurdles for those who want out is obtaining the correct
information on how best to proceed. Usually, the advice
to those on the run is to turn themselves in. After 30
days of being Awol a serviceman is considered a deserter,
and a warrant is issued for his arrest. At that point,
he can be returned to his unit, court-martialled or given
jail time or - and this is more often than not the outcome
for recruits - they will be given a non-judicial punishment
and an less-than-honourable discharge. Volunteers say
usually the military is more inclined to let go those
who have had the least training and are the least specialised.
But an experienced Air Force pilot, for instance, in whom
the military has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars,
could face a much more difficult time in getting out.
"The most important thing we do is listen and not
lie," Ms McNeil said. "Sometimes I tell people
there is nothing they can do. I don't enjoy saying it
but some times that is it."

Kevin Benderman is anything but a raw recruit. He joined
the US Army in 1987, served in the Gulf War and received
an honourable discharge in 1991. He rejoined in 2000 and
served during the invasion of Iraq with the 4th Infantry
Division. He says what he saw there left him morally opposed
to returning to war applied to be a CO. The military says
that on 10 January he failed to show up when his unit
was to ship out.

Last week, at Fort Stewart, a military judge started
a so-called Article 32 hearing to decide whether there
is sufficient evidence for a full court-martial of Sgt
Benderman. The proceedings recommence on 26 May. Sgt Benderman's
wife, Monica, who had been heavily involved in organising
his defence, said: "A lot of
what they are saying about Kevin is not true. He never
went Awol and was never a deserter. He is staying strong.
I am proud of him. He has had a lot thrown at him over
the past three days. If you consider what he has gone
through he is doing very well. If people cannot see he
is genuine, then they are not looking at him."

The Pentagon says it does not keep records of how many
try to desert each year. A spokeswoman, Lieutenant Colonel
Ellen Krenke, said the running rally had declined since
9/11 from 8,396 to the present total of 5,133. She added:
"The vast majority of those
who desert do so because they have committed some criminal
act, not for political or conscientious objector purposes."

Comment:
When we look at the military's line on deserters, we are
reminded of the slurs thrown at George Galloway. In both
cases, the moral issues are discounted and they are accused
of being criminals! Once more, the psychopath
accuses the victim of that which he is doing himself.

ANNOUNCER: In the old days, war profiteering was a grueling
round-the-clock job. You actually had to make something,
like planes or guns, and then overcharge the government
obscenely. Now, thanks to the Republicans, countless Americans
are becoming "war profiteers" in their spare
time - and you can, too. Riches once thought to be the
exclusive preserve of a few unsavory arms merchants have
been made available to thousands of successful Americans,
many of whom pull in the cash literally as they sleep!

What's their secret? With "The Republican Guide
to Wartime Tax Cuts," you can find out what's in
the playbook of Republican professionals. You'll get the
war you want without laying out a dime, even as you benefit
from huge tax cuts to boot (note: certain income thresholds
apply).

And here's the kicker: you can slip the bill for all
of this - both the war and your tax cut - to unsuspecting
children!

I know what you're thinking: "I don't have the self-confidence
or social skills to reach for such dreams." But here's
the truth: neither did Republicans a few years ago. Yet
just this week they came through again. On Wednesday,
George Bush signed into law an additional $82 billion
for Iraq, which brings the amount America has spent to
oust Saddam Hussein and occupy the country close to $300
billion.

Now, whatever you thought about Saddam, the best news
is this: we got this war for no money down and zero payments
for 10 years. That's right: every penny spent on this
war has been added to the deficit. And this latest $82
billion sailed through without a hitch, with no pesky
questions as to whether we should actually pay for our
own wars today.

(Yes, there was one scare, when Joe Biden said we could
do that by repealing a sliver of the tax cuts with which
the G.O.P. has incentivized important Americans. Luckily
this notion was swatted away as "nongermane.")
Now the drive for more tax cuts continues, even as yearly
deficits close in on half a trillion dollars!

If you're ready to bring into your own life the power
that this total suppression of fiscal and moral reality
can offer, "The Republican Guide" is for you.
Our CD's and training manuals will teach you how to profit
during wartime without ever leaving your home. In an age
of everlasting war, we'll show you which congressmen to
call to make sure your tax cuts are permanent to match.

But there's more. Beyond learning how to maximize your
own wartime tax cuts, you'll master previously undisclosed
behavioral secrets that let you act as if there's nothing
wrong with getting yours while the getting's good - just
as top Republicans do!

Don't take my word for it. Listen to how someone just
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[Testimonial]

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Believe it or not, there was actually a time when it
was considered offensive to fight wars and cut taxes at
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by on food stamps. I know - it seems so far away!

That's when I had to ask myself: if Republicans could
find the courage to put these inhibitions behind them,
imagine what I could do to reach for the brass ring in
my own life. Now, though I'd rather not go into the details,
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[Back to announcer]

ANNOUNCER: So what are you waiting for? Our operators
are standing by at call centers in India. Let "The
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[Voice-over]

WARNING: Support for the Republicans' wartime fiscal
policy may include such side effects as 50 million uninsured,
crumbling roads and bridges, and swelling inequality.
If you are concerned about any of these symptoms, please
call Dr. Howard Dean.

Over the last 4 years or so, the
Israeli military assassinated the entire leadership
of the Palestinian people. Shaik Yassin, Abdul Aziz
Al Rantisi, and many others were assassinated by missiles
fired from helicopters. Once all possible successors
of Yasser Arafat had been assassinated, it appears that
Yasser Arafat himself was murdered by poison. This was
done so that only collaborators or the weak would be
left to form a Palestinian government.

The Israeli government called
these assassinations "extra judicial killings".
As if inventing a propaganda phrase for the act of murder
somehow confers legitimacy on such heinous acts.
Back in the days of morality and law, before the coup
in the United States that installed George Bush as president,
before the illegal invasion of Iraq, assassinations
were reviled by the international community. Assassination
was condemned by all law abiding nations and rightly
so.

Now that the Israeli shadow government has completed
it's takeover of the USA, the USA is duplicating Israeli
behavior. The Israeli shadow government has ordered
the USA to use public assassination in order to further
its goals.

It has been reported that a man named Haitham al-Yemeni
was assassinated by the USA in the country of Pakistan
last week. The assassination was carried out by firing
a missile from a drone at a car carrying al-Yemini.
Just as Abdul Aziz al-Rantisi and many other Palestinians
were assassinated by missiles as they were driving in
a car.

The USA has officially denied the assassination so
that the collaborators in the Pakistani government can
continue to help the USA murder people on Pakistani
soil. Unofficially, military and other sources say that
al-Yemeni was assassinated because they were afraid
they would lose track of him.

Let us make this perfectly clear.

If the USA suspected this man of some crime, he should
have been captured and brought to trial where a jury
would examine the evidence and decide on the guilt or
innocence of the man. This is what is done in civilized
countries that believe in justice and law. If
the USA knew the location of Al-Yemeni well enough to
murder him with a missile, they knew his location well
enough to capture him. According to news reports, al-Yemeni
was guilty of no crimes. He did not blow up anyone,
he did not kill anyone.

The USA is now completely in
thrall to the Israeli shadow government. These people
have remade the USA government into a mirror image of
themselves. The entire campaign of lies about
WMD became a "mistake". The cultural heritage
of Iraq has been looted and their assets are currently
being stolen. These are "accidents" and "accounting
errors". The murder of innocent people in Iraq
on a daily basis does not even merit an excuse. They
say they can't be bothered to keep track of how many
innocent civilians they kill.

History will record this era
as the time when the Israelis threw off their cloak
of secrecy and assumed full public control of the USA
in order to further their plans for world domination.
The historical records will show that the USA
changed from being a champion of freedom and justice
into a client state of Israel. Reviled and hated by
the rest of the world just as Israel is reviled and
hated by the rest of the world.

For the selfish reason of wanting to be good neighbors
and deserving of the respect and admiration and well
wishes of the rest of the world, the USA should immediately
stop and unequivocally reject the Israeli policy of
public assassination.

ANDIZHAN, Uzbekistan - Uzbekistan's
government on Wednesday took foreign diplomats to the
town where witnesses said troops shot dead hundreds
of people but did not show them the actual site of the
massacre.

Authorities have blamed the killings in the eastern
town of Andizhan on Muslim rebels, but witnesses said
some 500 people, including women and children, were
gunned down by security forces who opened fire on protesters
last Friday.

"Write that down in your story
that they never took us to the school," one diplomat
shouted to reporters from a bus taking the envoys and
foreign journalists back to the airport.

It was outside School No. 15 on Cholpon Avenue that
witnesses said the killings took place.

"It's really weird. Why should
they want to go to this school?" this reporter
heard one Uzbek official say to another.

The group included diplomats from a number of European
countries, including Britain, Romania and the Czech
Republic, and China and
South Korea.

Heavily armed special forces accompanied the busloads
of visitors as they traveled around the deserted town,
where the normally bustling tea houses and kebab shops
were empty apart from the police and soldiers patrolling
them.

The more than two-hour tour of the Central Asian town,
in the densely populated Ferghana Valley, was led by
Interior Minister Zakirdzhon
Almatov who repeated government insistence that it was
rebels, not Uzbek troops, who were behind the bloodshed.
[...]

New FBI documents to be released
today show that anti-terrorism agents who questioned
antiwar protesters last summer in Denver were conducting
"pretext interviews" that did not lead to
any information about criminal activity.

The memos were obtained by the American Civil Liberties
Union as part of ongoing litigation and provide a glimpse
of the FBI's controversial efforts to interview dozens
of members of leftist protest groups before the party
conventions last year in Boston and New York.

FBI officials and then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft
said at the time that the interviews were based on indications
that radical protesters may be planning violent disruptions.
Authorities said one specific threat involved plans
to blow up a media van in Boston.

But the new memos provide no indication
of specific threat information. Instead, one heavily
censored memo from the FBI's Denver field office, dated
Aug. 2, 2004, characterized the effort as "pretext
interviews to gain general information concerning possible
criminal activity at the upcoming political conventions
and presidential election."

Another memo from December 2004 indicated that Sarah
Bardwell, one of the Denver activists singled out for
interviews, was targeted because she had helped organize
an antiwar protest and was a member of a group called
Food Not Bombs, which the memo characterized as having
a "close association" with a radical anarchist
group.

ACLU officials said yesterday that the documents show
that investigators from the FBI and the local Joint
Terrorism Task Force were on a fishing expedition.

"These documents confirm
that the FBI's anti-terrorism force has been collecting
information about peaceful protesters and dissenters
and targeting people for attention on the basis of constitutionally
protected association and advocacy," said Mark
Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU's Colorado chapter."It lends credence to what
a lot of critics have said: that the FBI is starting
to regard some forms of dissent as potential terrorism."

FBI officials said the interviews stemmed from specific
threat information, but they declined to provide details.

"The interviews reflected in these isolated documents
were based on a specific and credible threat received
by the FBI regarding potential violent criminal activity
that could have caused death or serious bodily injury
and was to occur during the Democratic National Convention,"
the bureau said in a statement. "It is the FBI's
top priority to prevent any act of terrorism, which
requires special agents of the FBI to thoroughly investigate
every credible threat received."

Bardwell, 21, who helped organize antiwar protests
on behalf of a local chapter of the American Friends
Service Committee, said she had no plans to attend either
of the political conventions and was troubled by the
FBI's attempt to interview her and her friends. None
of the activists consented to the interviews.

"It's very clear to me that the
purpose of those interviews was to intimidate activists
in the Denver area from exercising their First Amendment
rights," she said.

BALDWIN PARK, Calif. - Members
of a group that opposes illegal immigration protested
a piece of public art with inscriptions they claim are
anti-American, sparking heated exchanges with residents
of this heavily Hispanic city.

Police in riot helmets separated
the 40 members of Save Our State and scores of residents
during the rally Saturday, but there were no reports
of arrests or injuries. The protesters were then escorted
away from the site.

The artwork, called "Danza Indigenas," has
a 20-foot-high arch with inscriptions that read,
"It was better before they came" and "This
land was Mexican once, was Indian always and is, and
will be again."

The Ventura-based Save Our State organization, formed
seven months ago, said it wants the inscriptions removed
before the Fourth of July.

"I find it incredibly offensive," said Joseph
Turner, the group's executive director. He
said the inscription "is seditious in nature. It
essentially talks about returning this land to Mexico."

The artwork was created 12 years
ago by artist Judy Baca and commissioned by the city.
Baca said the structure is a "layered history piece"
that honors American Indians, immigrants and other groups
who have lived for centuries in the area.

Baca said that Save Our State's complaint
was misguided. She said the quote, "It was better
before they came," was originally uttered by a
"white man from Arkansas," who was complaining
about the arrival of Mexican-Americans after World War
II.

Comment: The artwork
was not talking about returning America to those from
whom it was taken by force, but was instead intended
to glorify the xenophobic attitude of some Americans.
Geez, could Save Our State be any more misguided??

"When it went on the arch, its ambiguity became
profound," she said. "The 'they' could be
any 'they.'"

Baldwin Park, about 70 percent Hispanic, is 15 miles
east of downtown Los Angeles.

WASHINGTON - The government is
pledging to take serious action against the pilot whose
small plane strayed over Washington last week, leading
to the panicked evacuations of the White House, the
Capitol and the Supreme Court.

"Any enforcement action we might take is not done
lightly," said Greg Martin, a spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration. An investigation could
result in the revocation of Hayden "Jim" Sheaffer
Jr.'s pilot's license. Student pilot Troy D. Martin,
who was also in the single-engine Cessna 150, does not
have a pilot certificate, so he will not be subject
to the same action.

"It's quite evident from anybody who witnessed
Wednesday's incident that the pilot clearly had no idea
what he wandered into," Greg Martin said Saturday.

Sheaffer, 69, froze when a Black Hawk
helicopter appeared near his right wing as he was flying
toward the White House and had a hard time handling
his small aircraft, officials told The Washington Post.
Troy Martin, 36, who had logged only 30 hours of flight
time, took over the controls and landed the plane at
an airport in Frederick, Md., the paper reported Saturday.

Sheaffer and Martin took off from Smoketown, Pa., on
Wednesday to go to an air show in Lumberton, N.C.

Their plane entered restricted airspace and then continued
flying toward highly sensitive areas, prompting evacuations
of tens of thousands of people as military aircraft
scrambled to intercept it. Alert levels at the White
House and the Capitol were raised to their highest level
- red.

Customs officials had scrambled a Black Hawk helicopter,
which peeled away when two F-16 fighter jets arrived
at the scene. The jets dipped their wings - a pilot's
signal to "follow me" - and tried to contact
the pilot on the radio. When the Cessna didn't change
course, the jet pilots dropped flares.

Finally, when the Cessna came within three miles of
the White House - just a few minutes flying time - it
altered course.

After landing in Frederick, the pilot and student pilot
were handcuffed and questioned before being released.
Authorities said the two had become lost en route to
North Carolina from Pennsylvania.

Sheaffer and Martin have not been available for comment.

Sheaffer didn't take the most basic steps required
of pilots before operating an aircraft, the Post reported,
citing FAA records. He failed to check the weather report
before leaving Smoketown, and he didn't check the FAA's
"Notices to Airmen," which informs pilots
of airspace restrictions.

BOSTON (CP) - An Alitalia jet
en route to Boston from Milan was diverted to Maine
on Tuesday, escorted by Canadian fighter jets, because
the name of a passenger on board matched that of a person
on the U.S. government's no-fly list, officials said.

But the FBI later said the man was not a suspected
terrorist. Flight 618 landed shortly before 1 p.m. at
Bangor International Airport in Maine, where one passenger
was removed from the plane along with his luggage. The
plane took off again about an hour later and headed
to Boston.

The man was questioned at the airport by the FBI,
which decided not to arrest him, spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz
said.

Canadian fighter jets escorted the flight through
Canadian air space, and it was picked up by U.S. fighters
in American air space, said Ann Davis, a spokeswoman
for the Transportation Security Administration.

The two F-15 Eagles from Otis Air National Guard base
on Cape Cod accompanied the flight into Bangor, said
Davis, adding there was "no report of any unusual
activity on board." [...]

The Air Force, saying it must
secure space to protect the nation from attack, is seeking
President Bush's approval of a national-security directive
that could move the United States closer to fielding
offensive and defensive space weapons, according to
White House and Air Force officials.

The proposed change would be a substantial shift in
American policy. It would almost certainly be opposed
by many American allies and potential enemies, who have
said it may create an arms race in space.

A senior administration official said that a new presidential
directive would replace a 1996 Clinton administration
policy that emphasized a more pacific use of space,
including spy satellites' support for military operations,
arms control and nonproliferation pacts.

Any deployment of space weapons would face financial,
technological, political and diplomatic hurdles, although
no treaty or law bans Washington from putting weapons
in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.

A presidential directive is expected within weeks,
said the senior administration official, who is involved
with space policy and insisted that he not be identified
because the directive is still under final review and
the White House has not disclosed its details.

Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive,
which is still in draft form, did not call for militarizing
space. "The focus of the
process is not putting weapons in space," said
Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force spokeswoman, who said
that the White House, not the Air Force, makes national
policy. "The focus is having free access in space."

With little public debate, the Pentagon
has already spent billions of dollars developing space
weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.

"We haven't reached the point of strafing and
bombing from space," Pete Teets, who stepped down
last month as the acting secretary of the Air Force,
told a space warfare symposium last year.

"Nonetheless, we are thinking about those possibilities."
[...]

Last month, Gen. James E. Cartwright,
who leads the United States Strategic Command, told
the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces subcommittee
that the goal of developing
space weaponry was to allow the nation to deliver an
attack "very quickly, with very short time lines
on the planning and delivery, any place on the face
of the earth."[...]

Comment: Note
the contradiction between the statements from Maj. Karen
Finn and Gen. James Cartwright. Finn said, "The
focus of the process is not putting weapons in space.
The focus is having free access in space." Cartwright,
on the other hand, states very clearly that the purpose
is to allow the US to deliver attacks very quickly to
any place on Earth. We suspect that Cartwright's statement
is more on the mark, as the Pentagon already seems to
have developed the weapons.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration
warned China on Tuesday that its currency policies were
distorting world trade, and it brandished the threat
of retaliation against the country's exports if Chinese
leaders did not change course in the next year.

In language far harsher than it has used before, the
Treasury Department declared that China's fixed exchange
rate between its currency, the yuan, and the dollar
posed a risk to its economy and the economies of much
of the rest of the world.

The administration stopped short of accusing China
of outright currency manipulation, a move demanded by
American manufacturers who complain that the Chinese
have artificially undervalued their currency to make
exports cheaper in the United States.

But the new language marked a change in relations,
which the administration has until now handled with
painstaking delicacy.

"Current Chinese policies,"
the Treasury Department said in a report to Congress
on Tuesday, "are highly distortionary and pose
a risk to China's economy, its trading partners and
global economic growth."[...]

Comment: Yup,
it's all China's fault! We are meant to believe that
the outsourcing and offshoring committed by American
companies is irrelevant. We are supposed to forget all
about the massive US trade deficit and the sky-high
personal debt levels in the US. Above all, we must never
even consider that the Bush administration's war on
terror has done nothing but harm the US economy and
the average US consumer as mountains of cash are dumped
onto the military and arms manufacturers, even as ordinary
Americans can't find jobs, must pay exorbitant medical
insurance premiums, and watch helplessly as their financial
nest eggs are obliterated by psychopathic corporations
and their psychopathic pals in government.

BEIJING/SINGAPORE - China on Wednesday
dismissed U.S. criticism of its fixed currency peg and
attacked European and U.S. steps to curb Chinese textile
exports as unfair.

The war of words reflects growing political unease
on both sides of the Atlantic over jobs that are being
lost because of a relentless increase in low-cost imports
from China -- many of them made
in factories built by U.S. and European companies.

Comment: Exactly.
So how can the US or Europe blame China?

The U.S. Treasury warned Beijing on
Tuesday it could be labeled a manipulative trading partner
unless it took steps toward scrapping the yuan's decade-old
peg against the dollar.

Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said Beijing was studying
the Treasury's report but it disagreed with its conclusions.

"I believe they are not reasonable," Bo told
Reuters on the sidelines of a business forum. [...]

Hours after the U.S. accusation, China
kicked off a new foreign exchange dealing system that
allows trading in currencies other than the yuan, a
milestone in the country's effort to reform its tightly
controlled currency regime.

China has long said that it intends to unshackle the
yuan, also known as the renminbi, which has been pegged
near 8.28 to the dollar since the 1997-98 Asian financial
crisis. [...]

Wei said accusations that China
was deliberately holding down the yuan were groundless
and told the United States to "put its own house
in order before blaming others" for its trade deficit.
[...]

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair
embarked on his third term and final in office with
controversial plans for identity cards, a scheme likely
to test out his Labour Party's sharply reduced majority
in parliament.

The ID card plan was among anti-terror and security
measures announced Tuesday by Queen Elizabeth II at
the official re-opening of parliament following the
May 5 general election, when Blair's Labour Party won
re-election.

The monarch, making the traditional government-scripted
statement of intent ahead of a parliamentary session,
announced a programme of roughly 40 planned measures
which will form a sizeable part of Blair's final political
legacy.

The prime minister, in power since 1997, has promised
to step down near the end of his third term, although
a series of Labour rebels have called on him to go more
quickly, with finance minister Gordon Brown seen as
a likely successor.

At the general election, Labour was re-elected with
a parliamentary majority of 67, comfortable by historic
standards but well below the 167 seen at the 2001 election.

The passage of the ID card bill through parliament
is likely to be the prime minister's first big challenge
in quashing rebelling among rebel Labour MPs keen to
take advantage of this newly-reduced margin.

"Legislation will be taken forward to introduce
an identity cards scheme," said the monarch, resplendent
in crown, heavy ermine robe and full ceremonial jewellery,
in the only mention of the plan in the 25-minute address
known as the Queen's Speech.

The measure was planned before the election, but met
fierce opposition within Labour and was dropped in the
days before parliament was dissolved due to lack of
time.

ID cards are commonplace in most European countries,
but they have never been permanently introduced in Britain,
where many citizens fear they would compromise their
civil rights.

The measure is officially aimed at combatting people
fraudulently obtaining state benefits, but is also part
of the government's broader fight against terrorism,
following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United
States.

Human rights organisations have long condemned the
plan, with Shami Chakrabarti, head of the group Liberty,
condemning "a Queen's Speech revealing a chronic
lack of respect for our democratic traditions".

Elsewhere in the monarch's address, she outlined other
plans to "continue the fight against terrorism
in the United Kingdom and elsewhere", measures
expected to include a law creating new the criminal
offences of "acts preparatory to terrorism"
and "glorifying or condoning" terrorism.

Additionally, the government promised an ambitious
programme of reform to areas including immigration controls
-- which will be made tougher -- education, the National
Health Service (NHS) and criminal law.

Addressing the House of Commons later Tuesday, Blair
labelled the programme "quintessentially New Labour",
a term closely associated with the prime minister, which
refers to the centrist line the party has pursued under
Blair.

"At the heart of the Queen's Speech are policies
that prepare our economy for the future, continue the
investment in and reform of the NHS and our educational
system, protect our citizens from terrorism and crime,"
he said.

He also served notice that the plan for ID cards would
not be postponed again, calling them the "obvious
policy for security in the time in which we live."

Whether it is sprouting
hair, budding breasts or a breaking voice, the signs that
herald puberty can be distressing and difficult to cope
with.

In the western world children are reaching
puberty at younger and younger ages - some girls at the
age of seven.

The reasons for this trend is unknown,
although several theories have been suggested.

Swedish scientists at the Karolinska Institute aim to
find out by tackling the puzzle from different angles.

Precocious puberty

It is accepted that the normal age for a girl to begin
to develop the first signs of puberty is 10 and above.
Boys develop slightly later, generally at eleven-and-a-half.

However, the age has been decreasing in developed countries.

In 1990, the first signs of puberty
were around the age of eight for girls - the whole process
taking two years to complete.

Now, according to researchers, some
enter puberty as young as seven.

Boys, too, are entering puberty at an earlier stage,
albeit still slightly later than girls.

But it is unclear whether this is a simply a shift of
the norm, or a if more children are experiencing a phenomenon
called precocious puberty - when they develop the first
signs of puberty abnormally early.

Controversial theories have been put forward, including
how watching too much television could distort the hormonal
balance of adolescents and push many of them into early
puberty.

Psychologists have said young girls who have close relationships
with their fathers might enter puberty later than girls
with distant or non-existent links.

Now 12 European teams are carrying out research as part
of a three-year project to get to the root of the problem,
looking at the most likely culprits.

Calories

Professor Olle Söder from the Karolinska Institute
is leading one study which will look at whether rising
obesity rates are to blame.

His team will study whether animals that are overfed
produce more of the male and female sexual hormones that
trigger puberty.

"We believe that this has a nutritional background
and that the obesity explosion we have seen in the US,
and which is coming to Europe, is important," he
said.

Colleagues in Germany will gather data on around 50,000
children to look at whether those who are plumper reach
puberty earlier.

A London group will look at strains of mice renowned
for early or late onset of puberty and see whether they
can modify this with diet.

Researchers have shown that overfed and rapidly growing
newborn babies go on to reach puberty earlier than other
babies.

Also, adoption studies show undernourished children who
have catch-up growth after being placed with more affluent
families have earlier onset of puberty than siblings who
remain in their home place.

Pesticides and pollution

"Another thing that might be important is environmental
factors that mimic hormones, such as pesticides,"
said Professor Söder.

A team of Belgian researchers pointed the finger at a
chemical derivative of the controversial pesticide DDT.

Jean-Pierre Bourguignon and colleagues from the University
of Liege found children who had emigrated from countries
such as India and Colombia were 80 times more likely to
start puberty unusually young.

Three-quarters of these immigrant children with "precocious"
puberty had high levels of a chemical derivative of DDT
in their blood.

However, there is no firm evidence. Some of the European
researchers will probe this further.

Equally, he said it might be down to genetics.

Genes

A team of researchers in the UK and the US recently pinpointed
a gene that they believe controls puberty through the
regulation of a protein called GPR54.

The US scientists, from Massachusetts General Hospital,
found that the gene that codes for GPR54 was mutated in
all members of a Saudi Arabian family who failed to reach
puberty.

At the same time, scientists at the UK biotechnology
company Paradigm Therapeutics contacted the US doctors
to tell them they had bred mice that had failed to reach
puberty.

They had "knocked out" the gene for GPR54 in
these mice.

Regardless of whether it is down to one factor or many,
it is not clear whether children entering puberty earlier
is a problem, said Professor Söder.

Some say girls who reach puberty earlier are more likely
to drop out of school and have lower incomes.

Data shows that they are also more likely to become mums
earlier.

With more and more women putting off having a baby until
later life, this might help be a good thing and help reverse
trends of top heavy ageing population, said Professor
Söder.

But equally, it might mean more women reach the menopause
earlier too and miss their chance to become a mum, he
said.

Either way, "it will have a societal impact,"
he warned.

Comment:
Another story that illustrates how little we really know.
We are caught in the midst of a rapidly changing world,
from climate change to disease to early puberty. We continue
recklessly careening ahead.

Notice the reference to gene GPR54, a gene that shows
some indication of relating to puberty. Now take a look
at our report on ethnic
specific weapons. Now put the two together. In a world
as corrupt as our own, we have no doubt that advances
in the mapping of the genome will be used for nefarious
purposes before anything is done with them for the good
of humanity. When have people in power ever done anything
that is good for humanity?

As plans proceed for the "depopulation" of
the planet, we imagine that many different methods will
be used. War, of course, is very effective, as is disease
and famine. Civil war can be very useful in killing off
a wide range of people. Natural catastrophes such as earthquakes
will account for a few more. Why not some strange disease
that keeps people as children? Sure, it is outlandish,
but when has that ever stopped Them?

A
senior Aids expert has warned that HIV in India is "out
of control".

The executive director of the Global Fund to Fight Aids
said that the epidemic in India is spreading rapidly and
nothing is being done to stop it.

Richard Feachem warned that India has overtaken South
Africa as the country with the most HIV positive patients.

He warned that the epidemic has spread
so quickly that India needed to "wake up" and
take the problem seriously, otherwise millions of people
will die.

Official statistics 'wrong'

"The epidemic [in India] is growing
very rapidly. It is out of control. There is nothing happening
in India today that is big or serious enough to prevent
it," Mr Feachem said.

He warned that India has now overtaken
South Africa as the country with the highest number of
people living with Aids or the human immunodeficiency
virus, HIV.

"Official statistics show India in second place
and South Africa in first place," he said, "but
the official statistics are wrong. India is in first place,"
he told the AFP news agency.

Latest figures provided by the UN agency UNAids - released
in July 2004 - show that South Africa had the highest
total of people with HIV or Aids in the world, with an
estimated 5.3 million infected adults and children in
a range of 4.5 to 6.2 million.

India's total was put at 5.1 million, but the range estimate
was far wider - from 2.5 to 8.5 million - because of the
lack of reliable data there in relation to the HIV pandemic.

India has to wake up and India has to take this very,
very seriously
Richard Feachem, executive director, Global Fund to Fight
Aids

Mr Feachem warned that the illness would spread faster
among India's Hindu population than among Muslims, because
Muslims tend to be circumcised, which he said was "an
acknowledged protective factor" against the Aids
virus.

Widespread ignorance

The Global Health Fund was set up in 2001 by the G8 group
of industrialised countries to provide funding for projects
in countries worst affected by HIV/Aids, Malaria and TB.

Mr Feachem said that the biggest form of transmission
in India is from heterosexual intercourse with prostitutes.

He said the problems were compounded by widespread ignorance
about HIV, an illness which he said had become stigmatised.

He also criticised the high prices in India of anti-HIV
drugs.

"It is easier to get Indian generic drugs in Africa
than it is to get them in India. That is a scandal and
has to be changed."

The Global Fund has committed more than $3bn to 300 programmes
in 127 countries for combating HIV/Aids, TB and malaria.

Two new viruses from the same family as HIV have been
discovered in central Africans who hunt nonhuman primates.

Researchers say their work proves it is not unusual for
potentially dangerous viruses to jump from primates to
man.

They say it is important to monitor disease in
bush meat hunters closely, as any virus they
contract from animals may spread to the community at large.

The study, led by Johns Hopkins University, is published
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new viruses identified in the latest study come from
a group known as the retroviruses, which are known to
cause serious illnesses in humans.

They have been named Human T-lymphotropic Virus types
3 and 4 (HTLV-3 and HTLV-4).

Humans have previously been infected by HTLV-1 and HTLV-2.
In most cases infection does not produce symptoms, but
it can trigger neurological problems, and even leukaemia.

Lead researcher Dr Nathan Wolfe said: "The emergence
of HIV from primate origins has cost millions of lives.

"The discoveries of HTLV-3 and HTLV-4
show that, far from being rare events, retroviruses are
actively crossing into human populations."

Blood samples

The research team collected and examined blood samples
from more than 900 people living throughout Cameroon.

All the individuals studied reported
some exposure to blood and body fluids of nonhuman primates,
contact mostly due to hunting and butchering of bush meat,
and in some cases to keeping primates as pets.

Analysis of the blood samples showed
that various simian (ape) viruses had infected the participants.

The two previously unknown viruses were found in two
bush meat hunters.

HTLV-3 is similar to a simian virus called STLV-3, and
was most likely contracted through direct contact with
a primate during hunting.

HTLV-4 does not have a known primate counterpart, making
its origin less clear. The researchers believe it could
have arisen through cross-species transmission from an
animal carrying an unknown form of STLV.

The same team discovered another primate retrovirus -
the simian foamy virus (SFV) - in bush meat hunters last
year.

Threat unclear

At this stage it is unclear whether either of the two
newly discovered viruses, of SFV are harmful to humans,
or can be transferred from person to person.

However, the researchers say their work clearly shows
that hunting provides the opportunity for viruses to jump
the species barrier.

Dr Wolfe said: "Ongoing collaboration with hunters
in central Africa gives us the potential to predict and
prevent disease emergence.

"Given the incredible potential costs of a new human
retrovirus into the general population, the development
of sentinel systems for forecasting disease emergence
- such as long-term surveillance of hunters - should be
seen as a human health imperative."

Dr Deenan Pillay, an expert in virology at University
College London, told the BBC News website that it had
been thought few viruses jumped the species barrier.

"This research suggests that there seems to be far
more transmission of a whole range of primate viruses
into humans than was previously thought," he said.

"But that is not alarming in its own right. If the
virus fails to replicate, or to be passed on to others,
then it does not pose a threat.

"However, if cross-species transmission is such
a frequent event, then all it takes is for one virus to
really take hold in somebody, and be passed on to others
for it to take off in humans."

Scientists are warning that the
virus which causes bird flu could soon be able to pass
between humans.

New evidence seen by Channel 4 News points to an increased
risk of a global flu outbreak because of the way the
virus has started to mutate.

It has killed 52 people in Asia in the last two years,
and despite the slaughter of millions of birds has not
stopped spreading. Now we've seen a report by World
Health Organisation scientists which warns that the
risk of a global flu outbreak is increasing.

These are the first signs the bird flu virus H5N1
is evolving and evolving in ways that make a global
pandemic more likely. [...]

Swedish scientists
have just identified a potential new hazard of country
life. Mobile phone users in rural areas could face a greater
risk of developing a brain tumour than those living in
towns and cities.

The finding is likely to prove contentious. British scientists
appointed by the government to look into health risks
associated with mobile phones have repeatedly failed to
identify any convincing evidence, but also failed to rule
out the possibility that some threat might emerge with
continued use. Others have claimed to be able to detect
a link.

One of them is Lennart Hardell of the University of Orebro
in Sweden, who reports in the journal Occupational and
Environmental Medicine that he and colleagues studied
the cases of more than 1,400 adults in Sweden aged between
20 and 80, who suffered either malignant or benign brain
tumours. They also interviewed a similar number of healthy
adults. Both groups were asked about their use of mobile
and cordless phones, and about their employment history.

The Swedish scientists found no evidence that the length
of time spent using a phone could be linked with tumour
risk. But they did find that digital and cordless phone
users living in a rural area for more than three years
were three times more likely to be diagnosed with a brain
tumour than those in towns and cities. Those who had used
a mobile for five years ran four times the risk. And people
who lived in rural areas and used digital mobile phones
were eight times more likely to contract malignant brain
tumours.

Brain tumours are among the less common cancers. In Britain
there are 4,300 cases reported each year, compared with
38,400 cases of lung cancer - and although mobile phone
use has multiplied hugely in the last decade, the incidence
of brain tumours has dropped very slightly.

The Swedish researchers warned their statistics were
based on a very small set of results, and needed to be
treated with caution. But cellphone
base stations were likely to be further apart in rural
areas, with a higher signal intensity to compensate.
"Clearly our results support the notion that exposure
may differ between geographical areas," the scientists
said. "In future studies, place of residence should
be considered in assessment of exposure to microwaves
from cellular phones."

Ed Yong of Cancer Research UK said: "These results
are interesting, but they should be interpreted with caution.
Most scientific studies have shown that mobile phones
do not increase the risk of brain cancer. But mobile phones
are a recent invention so we cannot be completely sure
about their long-term effects.

"The government and various health agencies have
recommended a precautionary approach to mobile phone use.
People, especially children, are advised to keep their
calls short until definitive research is published,"
he said.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - A rumor
that a remnant of the legendary Krakatau volcano was
erupting sent thousands of residents of Indonesia's
tsunami-hit Sumatra island fleeing in panic, witnesses
and media reports said.

Residents of the seaside town of Bandar Lampung ran
for higher ground when a tale spread early Tuesday that
Anak Krakatau, or the Son of Krakatau, was exploding
and had caused a tsunami that was about to crash down
on the town.

Those who fled returned only after daybreak, when
they could see the volcano _ and that no smoke was rising
from it, the state news agency Antara reported.

Anak Krakatau is a small volcanic island that rose
into sight after the volcanic blast that tore apart
Krakatau island in 1883. The explosion, which echoed
across a vast part of Asia, caused a tsunami that killed
an estimated 37,000 people and sent ash and rock into
the air that altered the Earth's weather patterns for
years, was the most powerful ever recorded _ 30 times
stronger than a nuclear bomb.

The island lies off Sumatra's southern tip, on the
same tectonic faultline as the undersea earthquake that
sent tsunami waves crashing into Indian Ocean coastlines
on Dec. 26, though it is more than 1,600 kilometers
(1,000 miles) away.

More than 128,000 people in Sumatra were among the
more than 176,000 killed in the tsunami. The island
has been rocked by countless smaller earthquakes since
Dec. 26, and many of its people remain jumpy.

It was unclear how the rumor began, but it quickly
spread by word of mouth and mobile telephone short message
services, Antara reported. By about 2.a.m. Tuesday,
almost all the mosques in Bandar Lampung were broadcasting
tsunami warnings from their loudspeakers along with
religious verses, it said.

"People were running around shouting the water
is rising, Anak Krakatau is erupting," said local
police officer Lt. Ayatullah. "The panic increased
when the mosques started telling people to run to higher
ground."

Police with loudspeakers atop patrol cars toured the
city, saying there was no danger and urging people to
return to their homes, but it had little effect, said
Ayatullah, who goes by a single name.

Unfounded rumors have sparked similar panic in other
parts of Indonesia since the tsunami.

MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT,
Wash. - The four, their lungs filled with ash, were
found inside their car after Mount St. Helens erupted
on May 18, 1980, with the force of a hydrogen bomb.

Rescuers also discovered a cassette recorded by Ron
and Barbara Seibold's children, ages 7 and 9, as the
family drove toward the volcano.

"They were goofing around - asking whether or
not they would see lava coming out of the mountain,"
said Jim Thomas, an emergency worker at the time. "One
asked if it was dangerous, and both parents cheerfully
reassured their kids that they'd be safe."

They weren't.

Like the Seibolds, most of the volcano's 57 victims
were caught in the avalanche of boiling mud and ash
in sections of the mountain considered safe for camping
and recreation. Most died of suffocation as ash filled
their throats, noses and lungs.

Twenty-five years after the fatal eruption, victims'
families want to stress that their loved ones did not
die because of their own recklessness.

"My mother would never ever, ever, ever, ever
have killed her own daughter," said Roxann Edwards,
of Scio, Ore., who was 18 when her mother and sister
set off for a day trip to the mountain. Their bodies
were found in the branches of separate hemlock trees,
about four miles outside the restricted zones.

On television the day after the eruption, then-Gov.
Dixie Lee Ray said most of the victims had ignored official
warnings and deliberately went into harm's way. President
Carter echoed that comment, saying: "One of the
reasons for the loss of life that has occurred is that
tourists and other interested people, curious people,
refused to comply with the directives issued by the
governor."

On Monday, victims' families asked for an apology from
Gov. Christine Gregoire on behalf of the late Gov. Ray.

Gregoire said she has no firsthand knowledge of the
decisions from that time, but added there has been much
progress in preparing for natural disasters.

"I hope it is some consolation to their families
that the knowledge we've acquired will help us avoid
further tragedy," she said in a prepared statement.

In the weeks leading up to the eruption, tourists were
routinely trying to get by roadblocks, said Bob Landon,
former chief of the Washington State Patrol. But
when the bodies were finally recovered, it became clear
that only a handful had died within the off-limits area,
he said.

Of the 57 who died on the mountain,
only three are known to have been killed within the
"red zone," the area cordoned off by officials
before the eruption. Another three - all miners carrying
permits - died in the adjacent "blue zone,"
an area closed to the general public but open to permit-carrying
workers.

Washington state officials argued
that the blast was unprecedented and that there was
no way for them to have foreseen the scale of the disaster,
which ripped trees out of the ground 17 miles from the
crater and devastated an area spanning 230 square miles.
Within hours, its plume had blocked the sun over much
of eastern Washington. Ash fell like snow as far away
as Montana.

The possibility of a far larger
eruption had been discussed, but it stayed among scientists,
said Richard Waitt, a geologist at the
USGS's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver. [...]

Comment: Unfortunately,
we suspect that we will be seeing more tragedies like
the one that involved the Siebold family. The article
notes that back before the 1980 eruption, the possibility
of a large eruption had been discussed, but the public
was not advised. Today, we see countless reports of
earthquakes,
volcanic
activity, and even meteors
falling from the skies. Each time, government officials
and scientific "experts" assure us that there's
nothing to worry about. We are quoted statistics and
probabilities to convince us that the likelihood of
a major catastrophic event is so low that we should
all just go about our daily lives as if nothing is wrong.
If we listen to the lies and half-truths, if we fail
to check the facts for ourselves, we may end up exactly
like the Siebolds.

DHAKA : At least 17 people died
and more than 1,000 homes were destroyed Tuesday in
pre-monsoon storms in northwestern Bangladesh, police
officials told AFP.

The storms uprooted trees and flattened hundreds of
bamboo and tin roofed dwellings, killing 13 people in
Natore district, said district additional superintendent
of police Mustafizur Reza. Four others died in adjoining
Rajshahi district, about 160 kilometres (100 miles)
from the capital Dhaka, added a district police spokesman.

The victims died when they were hit by falling trees
and other objects, the officials said.

Phone lines to some of the areas had been cut, they
added.

In another storm in central Bangladesh Tuesday, a
ferry carrying more than 100 people capsized.

At least one person has been confirmed dead and a
salvage operation to recover bodies thought to be trapped
in the sunken vessel was due to begin early Wednesday.

A farm crew is having to work
around a giant rock that appeared - somehow - in a field.

Cedar Rapids, Ia. - This must have been some rock 'n'
roll. But we're not talking music here.

Farmworkers found a boulder, estimated at 15,000 pounds,
in the middle of a Cedar Rapids-area farm field about
a month ago. They have no idea how it got there.

Meteorite? Not likely, said Bob Taylor, 51, who works
for Balderston Farms of Central City. But the colossal
curiosity did make its way to the field as though it
was on some kind of magical mystery tour - without tracks.

The rotund rock wasn't burned, or particularly dirty,
and wasn't sitting in a crater.

The rock wasn't there last year, Taylor said. It's
too big to have worked its way out of the ground, as
many field stones do.

"We picked the corn last fall, and the field
was fine," Taylor said. "We came back this
spring to do some fieldwork, and this big rock was here."

Taylor wondered whether the boulder rolled off a truck
that was hauling it to a nearby housing development.

One fence post leans a little toward the rock, as
if it might have been grazed by the boulder as it rolled
down the embankment and into the field. But that seems
like a rocky theory.

"Why didn't it make some kind of indentation
from the road to here?" Taylor asked. "That's
the mystery."

There are scratch marks on the boulder, as if it had
been lifted by a machine. But it's unlikely someone
plopped the rock onto the field with a crane in preparation
for another housing development.

Randy Balderston has been renting the ground to farm
for 15 years, and nobody told him or Taylor about the
sensational stone.

Dripping wet and deeply disturbed,
the smartly-dressed man was discovered walking along
a windswept road beside the sea. Over the next few days
he steadfastly refused, or was unable, to answer the
most simple questions about who he was or where he had
come from.

The mystery 'piano
man' who has refused to speak since he was found
wandering on a windswept road on the Isle of Sheppey,
and, right, his sketch that led to hospital staff
finding him a piano on which he plays melancholy
music. (Photograph: Mike Gunnill)

It was only when someone in hospital had the bright
idea of leaving him with a piece of paper and pencils
that the first intriguing clue about the stranger's
past emerged. He drew a detailed sketch of a grand piano.
Excited, hospital staff showed him into a room with
a piano and he began to skilfully perform meandering,
melancholy airs. Several weeks later he has still not
spoken a word, expressing himself only through his music.

Some who have heard the "piano man", as
he has been nicknamed, believe he may be a professional
musician. One theory is that he has suffered a trauma
which has caused amnesia, one of the methods the mind
uses to retreat from a shock. Personal memories can
be lost while the ability to communicate - or, for instance,
play the piano - is not.

The man's carers have become so desperate to find out
who he is and what has happened to him that they have
allowed his photograph to be taken in the hope that
someone will solve the mystery.

The "piano man" was found on the Isle of
Sheppey, Kent, last month. He wore a black jacket, smart
trousers and a tie, all dripping wet. Police officers
tried to find out who he was and if he had fallen into
the sea, been pushed or even swum ashore from a boat
- but the man remained silent. They dried him off as
best they could and took him to accident and emergency
at the Medway Maritime hospital in Gillingham.

Doctors examined the man, who appeared to be in his
20s or 30s, and found nothing wrong with him, but still
he failed to respond to questions. He was difficult
to assess as he appeared terrified of any new face,
sometimes rolling himself into a ball and edging into
a corner.

After hours of trying to elicit any scrap of detail
about his life, someone had the idea of leaving him
with a drawing pad and pencils. When they returned an
hour later they found he had produced an excellent and
detailed sketch of a grand piano. Realising that music
might be the key to unlock the mystery, he was taken
to the hospital's chapel, which contains a piano. The
man sat down at the instrument and began to play. The
doctors were amazed at the transformation. For the first
time since he had been found on Sheppey he appeared
calm and relaxed. He was also a good player - some say
exceptional.

In the following weeks the "piano man" returned
regularly to the chapel. He played sections from Swan
Lake by Tchaikovsky but most often seemed to prefer
to perform what appear to be his own compositions, which
have been compared to the work of the Italian composer
Ludovico Einaudi. Some hospital staff are convinced
he is a professional musician and may even have been
performing not long before he was found - hence his
smart black clothes.

Canon Alan Amos, the hospital chaplain, said: "He
likes to play what I would call mood music - quite circular
in nature without defined beginnings or endings."
Mr Amos suggested he was using music as an anaesthetic.
"Playing the piano seems to be the only way he
can control his nerves and his tension and relax. When
he is playing he blanks everything else out. He pays
attention to nothing but the music."

If allowed to he would play the piano for three or
four hours at a stretch and at times has had to be physically
removed from it because he refused to stop. When he
is away from the piano he almost always carried a plastic
folder with sheet music inside. Mr Amos said he did
not believe the man was a professional musician, but
someone who played well for his own pleasure. He suggested
that he might have been wearing dark clothes on the
day he was found because he had been to a funeral. He
said: "It's a very sad case. Clearly there must
have been some sort of trauma and it is important to
find out what it was."

The "piano man" was eventually transferred
to a psychiatric unit in Dartford, where he was given
access to a piano. Manager Ramanah Venkiah said: "He
has been playing the piano to a very high quality and
staff say it is a real pleasure to hear it. But we don't
know what his position is because he is not cooperating
at all."

Research has suggested that exposure to familiar music
can help people suffering post-traumatic amnesia. Some
therapists offer music to help such patients recover
lost memories and face the traumatic event which led
to their state. Meanwhile social workers have issued
a missing persons' bulletin on him. Until he is identified
he will no doubt continue to play his sad but soothing
music to the pleasure of those caring for him and his
fellow patients.

Anyone who has information that might help to identify
the "piano man" should email steven.morris@guardian.co.uk

If you've been getting e-mails with subject lines like "Bloody Self-Justice,"
"Multi-Kulturel=Multi-Kriminell," or Turkey
in the EU -- with a short message saying "read
for yourself" and links you're supposed to follow
-- then you're the victim of a Sober.Q worm sent to
infect your computer by the NPD
(German National Party), a neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic
party that has scored heavily in some parts of the country
by preaching racist, anti-immigrant xenophobia. So
reports Der Spiegal Online this morning. This brown-shirted
worm is attacking computers all over the planet.

Last year, the NPD shook Germany when it got a frightening
9.2% in elections in Saxony, winning representation
in the parliament there for the first time ever. This
January, the dozen NPD legislators in Saxony caused
an international scandal when they disrupted
a moment of silence in the parliament to mark the
60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz
death camp by Allied forces during World War II -- the
NPDers walked out, and made statements belittling the
Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews. (The NPD's leaders
frequently make anti-Semitic remarks).

The racist spam that has flooded inboxes from Australia
to Anaheim with hundreds of thousands of e-mails is
designed to boost the NPD's score in elections this
coming Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most
populated state. The Sober.Q virus, Der Spiegel
says, is "the newest version of the Sober virus,
a worm that infects address books and sends a copy of
itself to all the entries. Various security firms have
released warnings that they received hundreds of thousands
of Sober.Q emails within the first 24 hours of the virus'
outbreak."

Furthermore,"Sober steals mail-addresses from infected
computers and distributes itself in the name of any mail-address
it can find. Another thing. Sober.Q runs on computers
previously infected by an earlier version of the virus,
Sober.P, which appeared only a week ago disguised as an
email proclaiming free tickets to the Soccer Cup in 2006.
That virus, which was able to switch into German or English,
was particularly effective in soccer-crazed Germany, which
will be hosting the cup matches," Der Spiegel
says. (The
Registerin the U.K. also has a piece on this
worm, and
Pandagon has a ton of e-mails from readers complaining
they've gotten from a dozen to hundreds of these spammed
racist e-mails. )

The NPD's vote in Saxony last year was, in part, a reaction
to the government's attempt to ban it. I've always opposed
attempts to ban hate speech or parties that engage in
it -- such actions always contributed to the martyrdom
complex such extremists always cultivate, bring them attention
they would not have received otherwise, and make them
attractive to disgruntled, politically illiterate, unemployed
youth of the kind who made up Hitler's brownshirted private
army, the S.A., whose strong-arm tactics helped bring
him to power.

Anti-immigrant campaigns have allowed far right and
neo-fascist parties all over Europe to grow by surfing
on the Continent-wide new wave of racism, an atmosphere
of hate and fear that is also fueled by starkly declining
birth rates among the native white populations and intensive
breeding by the largely Arab and Turkish immigrants.
But let's hope Germans aren't fooled by the NPD next
Sunday.